Cowperwood was willing and anxious to build this tunnel, though he was puzzled how to secure from the city a right of way under Van Buren Street, where a bridge loaded with heavy traffic now swung.
There were all sorts of complications.

In the first place, the consent of the War Department at Washington had to be secured in order to tunnel under the river at all.

Secondly, the excavation, if directly under the bridge, might prove an intolerable nuisance, necessitating the closing or removal of the bridge.

Owing to the critical, not to say hostile, attitude of the newspapers which, since the La Salle and Washington tunnel grants, were following his every move with a searchlight, Cowperwood decided not to petition the city for privileges in this case, but instead to buy the property rights of sufficient land just north of the bridge, where the digging of the tunnel could proceed without interference.
The piece of land most suitable for this purpose, a lot 150 x 150, lying a little way from the river-bank, and occupied by a seven-story loft-building, was owned by the previously mentioned Redmond Purdy, a long, thin, angular, dirty person, who wore celluloid collars and cuffs and spoke with a nasal intonation.
Cowperwood had the customary overtures made by seemingly disinterested parties endeavoring to secure the land at a fair price.

But Purdy, who was as stingy as a miser and as incisive as a rat-trap, had caught wind of the proposed tunnel scheme.